


Laundry

by lantadyme



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-24
Updated: 2011-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-15 21:54:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lantadyme/pseuds/lantadyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's not really that interested in being a slave. She didn't want one in the first place. [Works best as an AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laundry

Even low level legislacerators have their own ships, tiny things that zip between planets and stars and the various legal infractions scattered in between. Redglare had not been happy when one desperate client had offered a slave in lieu of payment. She had bared her razor teeth and hung him from his own balcony and then she had taken the slave anyway.

It's a strange rare species that comes wrapped in a hibernation pod. She sets it in the cargo load of her ship and cracks the seal slowly, grinning all the while. He comes out of the cryofreeze coughing and coughing, curling up on his side naked and sucking air. Her gaze slides all over him and she expects him to lurch back, to show her the same terrified weakness that every client displays. Instead he sits up and raises a brow, eyes still hidden behind his ridiculous shades, and his tone is almost bored as he says, "Sup."

He's no good at cooking. He burns the first three meals he makes for her and she decides she prefers the autochef. She puts him to work in the lower parts of the ship instead, and for a week he disappears entirely. She hears nothing, sees nothing, but the bedding is clean and the floors sparkling and the rumble of the ship's drives has lost some of the sick whine of mistreated machinery.

Apparently he's not so bad a housewife after all.

Redglare pings his slave collar and tracks the locator through the ship to the laundry room. She skulks silently up the hallway, her footsteps careful and catlike, and despite the effort he still looks up the moment she enters—glancing over his shades and nodding in acknowledgment of her presence. He's up to his elbows in soapy water at the sink, the two washing machines running in tandem in the background. Music beats out of the intercom speaker with a heavy buzzing bassline. The plate underneath the transmitter is torn out and the wires rerouted in an ugly tangle so it will play the strange electronic melody, and Redglare looks at the mess for a moment, running a finger down the doorjamb.

"That is Alternian property you've defaced," she tells him, her voice even and with a hint of threat, no trace of her actual amusement.

He shrugs, back to washing whatever it is that's hidden below the suds. "Figured I'm Alternian property too so it don't really matter." He hooks a long red sock out of the water, sopping wet and stunningly clean as he sets it aside. "I'll fix it when I'm done if it bothers you so much."

A smooth smile slides over her face. He's not afraid of her and something about that makes her blood rush with excitement. It's unexpected and she likes that. Redglare doesn't get nearly enough of that anymore. "Perhaps it doesn't bother me."

Another shrug. He doesn't seem interested in playing her games. "Better not 'cause this is a pretty dope song and I'd have to kick your ass if you were raggin' on it."

The insolence in that statement smacks Redglare silent for a moment. He says it with no fire though, only strict matter-of-fact truth and she decides that if he won't play her games she will indulge him in his own. At least for a while. "We do not have music like this on my homeworld."

"Shame."

"Is it? It seems as if something as trivial as music should not matter in the least."

He smiles, glancing over as he shakes his head, and he almost looks disappointed for a moment. "See, that's where you're wrong. Because this shit is keeping me going and making me the best damn slave you've ever had before."

Still hovering in the doorway, Redglare raises her own brow. "Are you now?"

"That's the way I figure it. Else you wouldn't let me just lurk around cleaning ninja style and come bug me about defacing equipment while I'm doing your grody laundry. It's not the usual _modus operandi_. You ain't the first troll who's gotten her claws in me, señorita."

"Lady Redglare," she corrects sharply.

"Lady Redglare," he says, and it comes out smooth as silk, his voice dripping with suggestive charm.

She crosses the distance between them, heels tapping harshly on the cold metal floor, and she looms over him scowling. Such an insolent slave. Such a filthy-mouthed insolent, hardheaded, impertinent slave, and she curls a cruel hand in the neck of his shirt, glaring daggers. It would be so easy to break him. So easy. But he doesn't flinch away, barely even stops washing the laundry even as their gazes meet heated behind their respective shades.

She kisses him first. He laughs and bites her lip and presses her back to the humming washing machine as he slides his sopping wet hands under her shirt.

Perhaps having an obedient slave isn't the best arrangement, Redglare muses. Perhaps a plaything is better, and he doesn't complain as she drags her fingernails up the soft flesh of his back, drawing red blood.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Palebro (the Kirk Ain't Got Nothing On This remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/308595) by [DoctorV](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorV/pseuds/DoctorV)




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